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Vietnam: Vietnam War
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Vietnam is a country in southeast Asia which borders China, Laos and Cambodia on the north and west, and has coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea to the east and south. It declared independence from France in 1945, largely through the efforts of the Communist groups in Vietnam; ... the French spent eight years fighting the Communists. The decision at the end of this war in 1954 was to split the country in two, with North Vietnam being Communist and South Vietnam led by the Vietnamese who supported the French. Political struggle after South Vietnamese president Diem was assassinated (in a coup launched by his own generals) in 1963 caused the U.S. to send over American troops to try and support the non-Communist regime in the South. It was 1973 before the US started to withdraw its troops, and in 1976 the two sections of the country became one again under the government from the north. Border tension with the Communist government in Cambodia got worse after the fall of Saigon, and in early 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and installed a pro-Vietnamese government.
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The Vietnam War was the longest military conflict in U.S. history. The hostilities in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. Another 304,000 were wounded. The Vietnam War was a military struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, involving the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front (NLF) in conflict with United States forces and the South Vietnamese army. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese had struggled for their independence from France during the First Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam.
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From the beginning of the Vietnam War, the NLF had used bases situated just inside the borders of neighbouring Cambodia. For many years US military advisers had wanted these bases to be bombed. President Lyndon B. Johnson had rejected this strategy as he feared it would undermine the anti-communist government of Prince Sihanouk.
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The conquest of Vietnam by France began in 1858 and was completed by 1884. It became part of French Indochina in 1887. Vietnam declared independence after World War II, but France continued to rule until its 1954 defeat by Communist forces under Ho Chi MINH. Under the Geneva Accords of 1954, Vietnam was divided into the Communist North and anti-Communist South. US economic and military aid to South Vietnam grew through the 1960s in an attempt to bolster the government, but US armed forces were withdrawn following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces overran the South reuniting the country under Communist rule.
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In 1954, the United States, China, the Soviet Union, France, and Vietnam all sat down at the peace talks that ended the French-Vietnamese war. All these parties signed the 1954 Geneva Accords ending the war. The Geneva Accords temporarily divided Vietnam into North and South Vietnam. Supporter of the French and the United States would settle in the South, and supporters of Vietnamese independence would settle in the North. This division was created in order to create a cooling-off period after a bitter war for independence. In 1956, the Geneva Accords stated that there was to be an all-Vietnam election that would settle once and for all who would lead the independent nation of Vietnam.
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In Oct., 1971, President Thieu of South Vietnam was reelected for another four-year term; he ran unopposed as other candidates, fearing a rigged election, refused to participate. In his second term President Thieu faced serious problems. The gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops, which had begun in 1969, adversely affected the economy, bringing a severe recession. At the same time, the endless war fed a raging inflation. In Apr., 1972, in response to a major Communist drive from North Vietnam, the United States reinstituted mass bombings throughout the country; Haiphong harbor and six other North Vietnamese ports, as well as rivers and canals, were mined and effectively closed to shipping. Heavy, concentrated air strikes (as many as 340 a day) continued, with one temporary halt (Oct.
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